Key takeaways
Celebrity tokens implode fast. Hype can push valuations to billions in hours, but thin floats and insider exits trigger brutal crashes.
Concentrated supply = dump risk. YZY locked 70% of tokens with one opaque entity, magnifying volatility and uncertainty.
Anti-sniper tactics don’t stop insiders. Despite random contract launches, early wallets still flipped millions within minutes.
Ignore the name and check the plumbing. Verify holder distribution, liquidity locks and disclosures before touching any celebrity coin.
Ye (Kanye West) mentioned YZY on X, and within hours, the token’s value shot toward $3 billion, then dropped by about two-thirds as early buyers sold.
Nansen, an onchain analytics firm, counted more than $740 million of trading and over $20 million in total losses for regular traders.
Not good.
The team said they used protections against “snipers” (in plain English, “snipers” are bots or ultra-fast traders that try to buy in the first seconds of a launch and then dump on everyone else).
YZY’s method reportedly created 25 look-alike tokens and picked one at random to go live, intended to confuse those bots.
Even so, a handful of wallets still bought within the first minute and sold quickly. In total, 13 wallets collectively made about $24 million during the spike.
Also, project materials say 70% of all tokens are held by Yeezy Investments under lockups. That leaves relatively few tokens trading, which makes sharp drops more likely if big holders move.
Ultimately, fame outruns disclosure and liquidity, so these coins often implode; the lesson is to ignore the name and verify who holds the supply and controls the liquidity — or skip altogether.
An old-school playbook
Celebrity coins usually follow the same arc:
A sudden social post sparks FOMO ⟶ Disclosures are thin or purely promotional ⟶ Insiders or OTC buyers sit closest to the spigot ⟶ Early exits drain liquidity ⟶ The crowd ends up with the losses.
YZY’s launch fits the mold.
There’s precedent, too. In 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kim Kardashian for unlawfully touting EMAX without adequate disclosure. She paid $1.26 million and agreed to a three-year ban on promoting crypto asset securities — an enforcement signal that still frames celebrity token promos today.
Analytics have also flagged insider dynamics on newer celebrity tokens. When Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER launched, Bubblemaps data highlighted “huge insider activity,” including an account that acquired a large over-the-counter (OTC) tranche and then dumped a sizable share into the market.
And when Nigerian pop star Davido appeared linked to DAVIDO, Nigeria’s SEC issued a public investor alert warning that memecoins like DAVIDO are highly risky and purely speculative (again demonstrating regulatory concern around celebrity-driven speculation).
Did you know? A decade before YZY, Kanye West helped kill an unauthorized Kanye-themed coin called Coinye. After his lawyers sent a cease-and-desist, the devs tried rebranding it as a “half-man, half-fish” meme and then abandoned the project in 2014.
Why do celeb coins falter?
Most celebrity tokens implode for mechanical reasons: concentrated supply, insider-controlled liquidity and “anti-sniper” rituals that don’t stop fast money.
Concentration and unlocks
When a treasury or insider pool holds most of the supply, the circulating float is thin, and price whipsaws are common. The 70% allocation to Yeezy Investments under vesting/lockups is textbook concentration and magnifies dump risk if any portion moves or expectations shift.
Liquidity control
Who the liquidity providers (LPs) are, who holds the LP tokens and whether they are locked or renounced determine how resilient the market is during volatility. If a small group controls liquidity, exits can cascade quickly. (These are the first items traders should verify on any celeb coin.)
The “anti-sniper” theater
Randomized or “fair launch” claims don’t neutralize maximal extractable value (MEV) or privileged access. YZY’s team said 25 contracts were deployed and one chosen at random, yet minute-one accumulators still appeared and flipped.
That disconnect between ceremony and onchain flow is exactly why early distribution patterns deserve more weight than launch marketing.
Why traders pile in anyway
Fame short-circuits diligence. A celebrity’s name acts like a heuristic: If millions follow them, the token must be “safe enough.”
That social proof combines with classic launch dynamics (vertical candles printed against thin early liquidity), so FOMO overwhelms position sizing and risk controls.
Traders also tend to overweight “officialness”: A slick website, verified X account or corporate-sounding entity can feel like due diligence, even when ownership and control are ambiguous.
In YZY’s case, materials said the majority of its supply sits with Yeezy Investments, a Delaware company tied to West’s IP but with undisclosed ownership and limited transparency.
That opacity matters: If you can’t see who controls treasury allocations or related wallets, you can’t reasonably model dump risk or policy changes.
In YZY’s case, project materials show that most of the token supply sits with Yeezy Investments. That company operates the YZY site under a license from Ox Paha, which owns the registered YEEZY and KANYE WEST trademarks. This licensing step matters because it confirms the project is not an unauthorized knockoff using West’s brand, unlike Coinye back in 2014.
Still, the license only covers brand rights. It does not clarify who actually controls Yeezy Investments or the wallets holding 70% of the supply.
Delaware companies are not required to disclose beneficial owners, so traders cannot know who directs treasury policy or unlock schedules. That gap matters because when such a large allocation sits with one opaque entity, it makes modeling dump risk or sudden policy shifts almost impossible.
Did you know? In 2025, 51% of Americans say they’ve made a purchase or investment because of financial FOMO, according to Empower’s national survey.
How to vet a celeb memecoin in five minutes (checklist)
Before risking capital on a celebrity token, run this five-minute checklist to verify the plumbing.
Contract address: Pull the address only from the project’s primary site or verified X post; on launch day, copycats proliferate.
Holder distribution: Check the top-10/top-50 owners and links between wallets; look for treasury/insider tags and fresh funding clustering. Tools like Nansen and Bubblemaps make these patterns obvious.
Liquidity control: How much liquidity was seeded, who holds the LP tokens, and are they locked/renounced? Centralized LP control magnifies crash risk during volatility spikes. (A common pain point in celeb launches).
Supply mechanics: Read the allocation chart and vesting: cliffs, unlock cadence, treasury % and any transfer-tax/emissions quirks.
Trading pattern: Scan minute-one to hour-one flow: Clustered whale rotations, rapid in-and-out “snipers” and wash-like prints are red flags.
Disclosures and legal: Is anyone being paid to promote it? If so, disclosures must state that it’s paid, by whom and how much — a lesson reinforced by the SEC’s Kardashian-EMAX case.
Tactics if you insist on trading
If you must trade celebrity memecoins despite the red flags, minimize risk wherever possible.
Size it like a lottery ticket, not an investment (small, predefined risk).
Delay entries: Skip the first 10-30 minutes while initial distribution and MEV/snipers shake out.
Use hard stops and pre-planned exits; don’t average down into accelerating drawdowns.
Keep slippage tight to avoid buying illiquid wicks and failed transactions on vertical moves.
Track unlock schedules and LP-lock expiries rather than celebrity tweets — token mechanics trump marketing.
Book profits mechanically (ladder out) instead of waiting for a second viral spike; momentum in these markets often fades faster than it forms.
Bottom line: Trade the plan, not the personality. Keep positions small, stick to mechanical exits — and if you can’t, skip the trade.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.